Turner v. B Sew Inn

• Decision Date: 19 December 2000
• Docket Number: No. 93,567.,93,567.
• Citation: 2000 OK 97,18 P.3d 1070
• Parties: Stephanie Ann TURNER, Petitioner, v. B SEW INN, National American Insurance and The Workers' Compensation Court, Respondents.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

18 P.3d 1070

2000 OK 97

Stephanie Ann TURNER, Petitioner, v. B SEW INN, National American Insurance and The Workers' Compensation Court, Respondents.

No. 93,567.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

December 19, 2000.

Rehearing Denied February 8, 2001.

David A. Tracy, Paul B. Naylor, Tulsa, OK, for Petitioner.

Owen T. Evans, James B. Cassody, Tulsa, OK, for Respondents.

KAUGER, J.:

¶ 1 The question presented is whether an employee who is entering the workplace to begin work may recover compensation for injuries sustained in the employer's parking lot. We hold that the employee is entitled to workers' compensation benefits.

FACTS

¶ 2 The respondent B. Sew Inn, (respondent/employer) is a retail store which sells sewing machines and supplies, and offers sewing classes. It is located in an outdoor shopping center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The shopping center is lined with railroad ties which act as a curb along the store-front sidewalk. The petitioner, Stephanie Ann Turner (claimant), is employed by the respondent as a sales clerk and sewing instructor.

¶ 3 Because the store opens promptly at 10:00 a.m., the employer asked that employees arrive early enough to be ready to greet customers when the doors open. According to the claimant, she was directed by the store manager to reserve the parking spaces in front of the store for customers. The store's owner insists that the claimant was not told to park in a certain area, but the owner of the store admitted that she didn't want her employees to park where customers could park and easily come into the store.

¶ 4 Although she was not required to, the claimant sometimes took work home to prepare for her classes. On the morning of January 30, 1999, the claimant arrived to work at around 9:45 a.m. and parked her car in the shopping center parking lot. After exiting her car, the claimant walked towards the store's front door carrying an umbrella, a purse, a doll she had sewn for display, and materials she needed for a sewing class. Because it was raining, the claimant knew the railroad ties bordering the sidewalk would be wet and slick. To avoid a potential fall off a railroad tie, the claimant attempted to step over one and onto the sidewalk. Although her toe landed on the sidewalk, the rest of her foot stepped into a hole which caused her to fall and fracture her leg and ankle. Subsequently, the claimant filed a claim in the Workers' Compensation Court.

¶ 5 On August 2, 1999, the trial judge entered an order denying the claimant's claim for compensation, finding that her injury neither arose from nor occurred in the course of employment. The claimant appealed, and the Court of Civil Appeals sustained the Workers' Compensation Court. The claimant petitioned for certiorari which we granted on July 6, 2000. The Court of Civil Appeals opinion is vacated, and the trial court is vacated and remanded.

¶ 6 THE EMPLOYEE IS ENTITLED TO WORKERS' COMPENSATION BENEFITS.

¶ 7 The employer does not dispute that the claimant sustained an accidental injury in the shopping center parking lot. Rather, it contends that the injury neither arose out of nor occurred in the course of employment, and that it does not own or control the parking lot. It argues that the claimant is not entitled to workers' compensation benefits because: 1) she was injured while going to work; 2) there was no causal relationship between her act of walking into the building and the requirements of employment; 3) her fall was the result of a "neutral risk" of wetness which is not an employment related risk or hazard maintained or controlled by the employer; and 4) she was exposed to no more risk than that to which the general public would be exposed. The employer relies on our decisions in Odyssey/Americare of Oklahoma v. Worden, 1997 OK 136, 948 P.2d 309 and American Management Systems v. Burns, 1995 OK 58, 903 P.2d 288, to support its argument.

¶ 8 The claimant counters that Worden and Burns are inapplicable because they involved injuries which occurred off the employer's premises. She argues because her injury occurred in the parking lot, while going into work, it is deemed to have arisen out of and in the course of employment. She asserts that: 1) our decision in Corbett v. Express Personnel, 1997 OK 40, 936 P.2d 932 and its underlying rationale are controlling and dispositive of this cause; and 2) the parking lot does not need to be directly owned or under the complete control of the employer to be considered the premises of the employer for workers' compensation purposes. Because the injury here occurred on what is deemed to be the employer's premises, we agree that Worden and Burns do not apply.

A.

¶ 9 For the Application of Workers' Compensation Law, the Parking Lot Constitutes the Employer's Premises.

¶ 10 Neither party disputes that the owner of the shopping center provided the parking lot for the joint use and benefit of employees and customers, nor that the employer acquiesced in the employee's use of the landlord-provided parking lot. Similar situations existed in Max E. Landry, Inc. v. Treadway, 1966 OK 259, 421 P.2d 829 and Swanson v. General Paint Co., 1961 OK 70, 361 P.2d 842.

¶ 11 The Treadway employer conducted its business in a building in which several other business were operated. The owner of the building provided a parking lot for the employees and customers of the building to use. When the Treadway claimant arrived for work, she slipped and fell before entering the building. The Court held that insofar as workers' compensation law is concerned, a parking lot constitutes an employer's premises when the employer's landlord furnishes it for the joint use of tenants and their employees, and its use is acquiesced in by the employer.

¶ 12 In Swanson, an employee was killed while crossing a highway from the parking area to the place of employment. The landlord furnished a parking area for the convenience of its several tenants and their employees. The employer acquiesced in the employee's use of a landlord-provided parking lot. The Swanson Court held that the parking area constituted a part of the employer's premises within the meaning of the Act. Pursuant to the rule set forth in Treadway and Swanson, the shopping center parking lot constituted the employer's premises.

B.

¶ 13 The injury occurred in the course of and arose out of the claimant's employment.¹

¶ 14 A compensable work-related injury must occur in the course of and arise out of the worker's employment.² The "in the course of" prong relates to the time, place or circumstances under which the injury occurs.³ To be considered in the course of employment, an accidental injury must occur within the period of employment at a place where the worker reasonably may be and while reasonably fulfilling a duty of employment, or engaged in doing something incidental thereto.⁴ It tests whether, at the critical moment, the claimant was on a mission for the employer.⁵ The "arise out of" prong contemplates a causal connection between the act engaged in at the time the injury occurs and the requirements of employment.⁶ To meet the "arising out of" test, it must appear to the rational mind, upon considering all the circumstances, that a causal connection exists between the conditions under which the work is to be performed and the resulting injury.⁷

¶ 15 Ordinarily, an injury sustained while going to or from an employer's premises is not one which arises out of and in the course of employment within the meaning of the Act.⁸ However, there is an exception to the rule if the injury occurs on premises owned or controlled by the employer.⁹ In Swanson, the Court recognized that:

"When landlord of several industrial tenants furnishes a parking yard for the joint use of such tenants and their employees, and the use thereof by employees is acquiesced in by the employers, such area constitutes premises of such employers in the application of the Workmen's Compensation Law."

The reason for this exception is that, for workers' compensation purposes, the course of employment does not begin and end with the actual work a claimant was hired to do. It also covers the period between entering the employer's premises a reasonable time before beginning any actual work and leaving within a reasonable time after the day's work is done.¹⁰

¶ 16 Since 1944, this Court has consistently recognized that when an injury occurs on premises owned or controlled by the employer while going to and coming from work, it is deemed to have arisen out of and in the course of employment.¹¹ Likewise, we have consistently limited the application of this rule by requiring a causal connection between the injury and employment¹² or that the precipitating risk of harm was created or maintained by the employer.¹³

¶ 17 In Fox v. Nat'l Carrier, 1985 OK 91, 709 P.2d 1050, a truck driver recovered workers' compensation benefits after choking on a piece of sausage and rupturing a cervical disc. The Court held that because eating is necessarily incidental to the work of a traveling employee, injuries to traveling employees arising out of eating are compensable under the workers' compensation act. In 1986, in an apparent response to Fox, the Oklahoma Legislature amended the Workers' Compensation Act (Act), 85 O.S. Supp.1986 § 3 (7) to require that "only injuries having as their source a risk not purely personal but one that is reasonably connected with the conditions of employment shall be deemed to arise out of employment."¹⁴

¶ 18 The Court addressed the legislative change to the Act in American Management Systems v. Burns, 1995 OK 58, 903 P.2d 288. In Burns, we determined that the Legislature's revision required that the risk responsible for the injury be causally connected to the employment. The risk must exceed ordinary hazards to which the general public is exposed for the injury to be compensable. Burns involved a worker's widow who sought compensation for death benefits after her...